Budget Woes Deflate Planned Initiatives

Seven months ago, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. closed the regular session of the General Assembly on a dramatic note.

He vowed that when lawmakers returned in 1993, he would present them with a plan to solve some of the state's most vexing problems. With the state budget crisis largely over, he suggested the time had come to make progress instead of struggling to keep the status quo.

"The next budget means cities without tears, children all equal in the promise of education, our sick cared for regardless of income," Weicker said. "And we'll do that, and more, without new taxes."

Unfortunately, the budget picture that looked so bright to the governor in May has lost its gleam in December, forcing the administration to attempt to lower the expectations he may have created in that speech.

Instead of solutions, Weicker said recently, people should look for "small starts" on the three initiatives he identified in May.

"I've got great ambitions," but there's not enough money to fulfill them next year, he said.

The proposals on the three initiatives will be announced in February when Weicker issues his 1993-94 budget plan.

Although Weicker and his top aides say no decisions have been made, they've said enough about the state's budget problem to give fair warning to anyone who may be expecting bold and expensive new programs.

Briefly, the budget problem is this: Without new taxes, state revenues are expected to grow by no more than $440 million next fiscal year. But spending will rise by at least $588 million unless cuts are made in existing programs.

As the governor is telling audiences across the state, it will require spending cuts to balance the 1993-94 budget. Money for new programs? There won't be much, and all of it will have to be cut from some other part of the budget.

Given these constraints, it's easy to foresee that the

governor's health-care program will not cover people without insurance.

Nor is he likely to foster much school integration with the modest package of incentives he can afford to dangle before local school officials.

And enough has been said to municipal officials about what will not be in the urban initiative to cause a group of them to ask to meet with Weicker next month in hopes of changing his course.

What they want, at the very least, is more state aid to relieve the local tax burden, and changes in laws that make it harder for them to cut their own budgets, said New Haven Mayor John Daniels, who heads an urban group within the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.

If the governor's program does not have those features, he said, "to me it's not an urban initiative. To me, that's doing business as usual."

Lt. Gov. Eunice S. Groark, who heads a task force formulating the urban plan, said urban leaders looking for more cash will be disappointed, but they should not dismiss the effort as "business as usual."

"There will be things in there that will clearly be steps forward," she said. "Some of them may not have all the funding now, but it will be a clear indication of where we're going."

Most of the steps will be designed to help cities encourage development, thereby expanding their property-tax bases and making them less reliant on ever-increasing infusions of state aid.

In essence, she said, the idea is to help cities help themselves.

"I think a lot of this has to be self-help," she said. "It's got to be stuff that the cities do, and that we do with the cities, to provide a perpetual source of strength."

Simply increasing the flow of state dollars into local treasuries will not solve the problems, she said.

The state's most ambitious urban economic program already exists. Known as Urbank, it was announced two months ago as a partnership with 15 banks that may provide as much as $250 million in loans to city businesses.

Another lending program under consideration would help urban business owners with some operating expenses -- such as store security -- that cannot be financed by Urbank.

In addition, Groark said, the state may beef up programs that clear sites of derelict buildings and hazardous materials, creating jobs for the cleanup and opening new properties to development.

Economic development assistance is one of six items listed by Daniels' urban task force as crucial ingredients in any program to help distressed cities.

The list also includes assigning state troopers to assist local police in high-crime areas. That's under consideration, said Stanley J. Twardy Jr., the governor's chief of staff, who's been working on a public-safety component of the urban initiative.

And, improvements in community health programs, with an emphasis on the care of children, are on the Daniels group's list and Weicker's.

What the cities also want, but aren't likely to get, is a massive increase in state payments to compensate for tax exemptions on state-owned property, private colleges and hospitals within city borders.